156 TROUBLES OF EXPLORER 



the mouth. For example: a person walking along feels intensely thirsty, 

 and he looks to his feet with coveting eyes ; but his sense and firm resolutions 

 are not to be overcome so easily, and he withdraws the open hand that was 

 to grasp the delicious morsel and convey it into his parching mouth. He has 

 several miles of a journey to accomplish, and his thirst is every moment 

 increasing; he is perspiring profusely, and feels quite hot and oppressed. At 

 length his good resolutions stagger, and he partakes -of the smallest particle, 

 which produces a most exhilarating effect; in less than ten minutes he tastes 

 again and again, always increasing the quantity ; and in half an hour he has a 

 gurn-stick of condensed snow, which he masticates with avidity, and replaces 

 with assiduity the moment that it has melted away. But his thirst is not 

 allayed in the slightest degree; he is as hot as ever, and still perspires; his 

 mouth is in flames, and he is driven to the necessity of quenching them with 

 snow, which adds fuel to the fire. The melting snow ceases to please the palate, 

 and it feels like red-hot coals, which, like a fire-eater, he shifts about with 

 his tongue, and swallows without the addition of saliva. He is in despair ; 

 but habit has taken the place of his reasoning faculties, and he moves on with 

 languid steps, lamenting the severe fate which forces him to persist in a practice 

 which in an unguarded moment he allowed to begin. ... I believe the 

 true cause of such intense thirst is the extreme dryness of the air when the 

 temperature is low." 



The woes of the explorer cannot better be told than by extracts from the 

 diary of John Herron, one of a party left adrift on an ice-raft during the 

 expedition of the ship Polaris, under Charles F. Hall, in 1872. There were 

 nineteen persons in his party, including two women and four children. 



Describing the way the party was lost, Herron says : 

 . "October 15. — Gale from the southwest; ship made fast to floe; bergs 

 pressed in and nipped the ship until we thought she was going down ; threw 

 provisions overboard, and nineteen souls got on the floe to receive them and 

 haul them up on the ice. A large berg came sailing down, struck the floe, 

 shivered it to pieces, and freed the ship. She was out of sight in five minutes. 

 We were afloat on different pieces of ice. We had two boats. Our men were 

 picked up, myself among them, and landed on the main floe, which we found 

 to be cracked in many places. Saved very little provisions. 



"October 16. — We remained shivering all night. Morning fine; light 

 breeze from the north; dose to the east shore. The berg that did so much 

 damage half a mile to the northeast of us. Captain Tyson reports a small 



